It is not all about balancing: proportionality’s necessity test

Many articles or even whole books on proportionality barely mention its first two prongs, the suitability and necessity tests. It seems that it is all about balancing. In my paper, I argue that the necessity test has a much more important role than it has been acknowledged so far. Although the most obvious implications of shedding the appropriate light onto the importance of the necessity test are analytical (for instance, to make clear that proportionality is not only about balancing), I also show that taking the necessity test seriously has important implications for other ongoing debates related to the proportionality test, such as those concerning its rationality and the relationship between courts and political powers.